N.A.T.O. Fails To Agree On Nuclear Strategy

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30626, 17 December 1964, Page 19

N.A.T.O. Fails To Agree On Nuclear Strategy

ffi.Z. Press Assn. —Copyright) PARIS, Dec. 16. North Atlantic Treaty Organisation planners have failed to agree on joint military strategy for Western response to a potential Communist attack, authoritative sources said today. Efforts to compose differences between French and American defence concepts for the alliance have ended in deadlock, the sources said. N.A.T.O. planners have reported this to the N.A.T.O. Ministerial conference now being held.

N.A.T.O.’s military planners thought the defence shield was generally in “good shape” although its nuclear arm needed strengthening. But the political differences, particularly France’s go-it-alone policy, have weakened the alliance’s basic strategy—how to use its military might. There was now no agreed strategy, which could prove

dangerous to the extreme in the event of an emergency, the sources said.

The problem facing N.A.T.O. is whether to meet a Communist attack with conventional weapons in the first instance and to utilise the nuclear deterrent only in the ’last resort. This is the policy advocated by the United States and the bulk of the alliance, the sources said. Use At Once France, however, holds that any major Communist attack should be met at once with nuclear retaliation. France was understood to advocate readiness for the immediate use of strategic nuclear weapons as the best pledge for discouraging aggression. It advocates nuclear bombardment of the war potential of whatever country launches a war. Such immediate nuclear reaction was advocated to stem major aggression such an attempt to seize territory, the sources said.

The American strategy, backed in principle by the remainder of N.A.T.0., advocates a policy of “flexible response.” No Progress It called for the use of conventional weapons in the first stage of aggression, then of tactical nuclear weapons, and only as the last resort of strategic nuclear weapons, the source said. An official N.A.T.O. assessment shows the alliance can field five times more trained troops, with the most modern weapons, than it could in 1951.

The United States led the Soviet Union in intercontinental ballistic missiles by a ratio of as much a five to one.

The United States also led in fleet ballistic missiles by nearly four to one, according to the estimates. Over-all, the N.A.T.O. and Communist Warsaw Pact

alignments were estimated to have equal numerical strength of about 3,000,000 men each.

According to the estimates, N.A.T.O. now had 60 “assigned” divisions. They could be augmented by another 30 divisions in an emergency. There were about 2500 “units of delivery” for tactical nuclear weapons in Western Europe. N.A.T.O. divisions were supported by about 5500 tactical planes. N.A.T.O. had built or modernised 200 airfields in Europe. The Russians had about 700 or 800 medium-range rockets trained on Europe, the estimates said.